


darn that dream

by Polexia_Aphrodite



Category: Agent Carter (Marvel Short Film), Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: BAMF Peggy Carter, F/F, F/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Peggy in the French Resistance, period-typical smokin' and drinkin'
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-04
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-03-16 06:23:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 9,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3477758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polexia_Aphrodite/pseuds/Polexia_Aphrodite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peggy Carter-themed ficlets, written in response to various prompts, originally posted on Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. peggy/steve - "you came back"

**Author's Note:**

> _darn that dream_   
>  _and bless it too_   
>  _without that dream, i never would have you_   
>  _but it haunts me and it won't come true_
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _oh, darn that dream_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _1\. Prompt: Peggy/Steve, "You came back."_

“You came back.”

Steve’s voice sounds a million miles away as Peggy driftsalong under a comfortable, cottony haze of anesthesia. Her face feels numb; her limbs tingle and ache. She pulls her eyelids open to see him. He cuts a stark figure, lit up in golden kerosene lamplight against the olive drab of the field hospital tent. He is almost unbearably handsome.

Three weeks earlier, she had left the Commandos in the field to talk strategy in the SSR’s London headquarters. But news of the 107th’s movements into Germany, and a weariness at spending too much time in musty, underground offices had propelled her back to the continent.

She’d nearly caught up to them outside Munich when the sharp sting of snipers’ bullets had pierced her shoulder. She only half-recalled what had happened next: she remembered feeling her right arm and chest covered in warm, wet blood. She remembered Dugan’s rough hands on her as he’d lifted her into the back of a jeep. She remembered Steve’s voice, cutting through the din, calling her back.

Peggy looks at him now, and smiles. Steve smiles back, but his eyes are still dark with worry.

“Couldn’t leave you alone for too long,” she says. Her tongue feels heavy in her mouth. “Who knows what sort of trouble you’d’ve gotten into.”

His hand slides into hers. His palm is warm and calloused. Her fingers curl and squeeze. Behind him, she sees Dugan, Jones and Barnes come forward, peering anxiously at her in the dim light. For a terrible moment, she feels sure that Steve will pull his hand away; he’s always been a bit too private. 

But he surprises her, as he always does, when he keeps his grip, and she keeps hers.


	2. peggy/sousa - "i just want this"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This little drabble takes place after the _Agent Carter_ episode _The Iron Ceiling_.
> 
>  
> 
> _2\. Prompt: Peggy/Sousa, "I just want this"_

Sousa settles up to the bar, pressing his hands against the dark wood as he hoists himself onto a stool. His thigh aches like hell, and for the millionth time he damns the cheap government-issue prosthetic that chafes and pinches, and turns what’s left of his leg into a throbbing, aching mess by the end of the day. He’s glad to sit down, glad to find himself in this dark, smoky room where he can try to disappear for a while, into a sea of off-duty federal agents. The barkeep’s just handed him an Old Fashioned – amber liquid and ice in a short, heavy glass – when she presses her way through the crowd and takes the seat next to him.

Peggy smiles at him – _smiles_ at him – and he bristles. He hates that she has the nerve to pretend she’s not working with Stark. He hates that he let himself go soft for her. He hates that he doesn’t understand her, and that she makes him misunderstand himself. He hates that he can’t bring himself to hate her.

“Shouldn’t you be letting Thompson buy you a drink somewhere?”

She shrugs and sets a half-empty glass of gin on the bar. “I’m afraid they’ve all gone home. Isn’t that where you ought to be?”

Sousa nods and drinks, “Changed my mind.” His shoulders feel leaden; his eyes sting. He looks over at her, and she must see some of his weariness because her brow creases and the corners of her mouth turn down.

“You know,” he starts quietly, making no effort to keep the bitterness out of his voice, “I bet you’d look terrific as a blonde.”

Her back straightens and she pushes away her drink. “It’s not what you think.”

“Isn’t it?” He’s pleased that at least she hasn’t tried to deny that the woman in the club was her.

“No. At least, it’s not what Thompson and Dooley think it is. It’s as I said: Howard Stark is many things, but he is not a traitor. God help me, I intend to prove it.” Sousa scoffs and looks down at his drink. “You must believe me.”

He glances up. Her dark eyes are wide and bright; her face is a little flushed from drink. He looks away before he can think how beautiful she looks.

“Why?”

“Because it’s the truth,” she insists. “Because— ”

She doesn’t finish the sentence, but she doesn’t need to. He hears it in his head: _Because Steve Rogers would have._

Peggy places her hand on his arm; he flinches but can’t bring himself to shake her off of him. _She lied to you_ he tells himself, _She’ll lie again_. He wishes he could believe it.

“I just want this,” she says softly, “To prove them wrong. Don’t you?”

Sousa clenches his jaw. Whatever she’s been doing, she’s been on her own, like she was in the club that night. She’ll need help and he’s weak-kneed enough to give it to her.

“I do.”


	3. peggy/sousa - "can i kiss you?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _3\. Prompt: Peggy/Sousa, "Can I kiss you?_

“Can I kiss you?”

It’s the kind of thing that, from any other man, would have made Peggy’s blood curdle, but somehow Sousa has cut through her distaste for hesitant men in the same way that Steve once did. Now, in the darkened alley behind the L&L, he asks, and she answers with a nod of her head.

She wanted to dislike him; it had been so easy to dislike the other men in the office. But they had been brainless and brutish, and Sousa had showed her something altogether different. There was a kindness in him, a yearning to understand and be understood that made her heart ache with its utter familiarity.

It had started one night after work, after drinks, when he’d walked her back to The Griffith and she’d been just tipsy enough, just lonely enough, to lean in and press her lips to his. For a moment, he’d been too shocked to respond, but then his mouth had moved against hers, his free hand had moved to her waist, and Peggy had let herself like it.

It didn’t hit her until she’d gotten back to her room, breathless and flushed: she could no longer say that Steve was the last man she’d kissed.

Now, in the dim light of the alley, Peggy pushes Steve out of her mind and folds her arms around Sousa’s broad shoulders. “You needn’t always ask,” she says as he shifts toward her, pressing his lips to her cheek, her jawline, the corner of her mouth. Even now, she wishes she liked him less: wishes the scent of his cologne and the curve of his smile and the warmth of his body didn’t make every nerve in her body pull taut with anticipation. Sousa presses against her and something quakes through her – the stirrings of a desire she had once thought ended with Steve. She feels more than sees him smile, just a moment before he finally ends her suspense and brings his mouth to hers.

“I like it when you say yes.”


	4. peggy/thompson - "i'm flirting with you"/"are you drunk?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _4\. Prompt: Peggy/Thompson, "I'm flirting with you" & "Are you drunk?"_

She loathes nights like this – when she and Thompson are the last left – and it happens all too often. The office is nearly dark save for the light over her desk and his. Thompson leans back in his chair, his back to her, props his feet on his desk and pulls a silver flask from a drawer. As Peggy pulls the cover over her typewriter, she sees him take a long swig. The unprofessionalism of it – these hidden drinks she keeps finding him with – makes her cringe.

She stands, hoping she can slink out of the office without drawing his attention, when he sits up, kicks his feet back to the floor and swivels his chair towards her.

“Krzeminski had a wife.”

He doesn’t look straight at her, just somewhere into the middle distance, and takes another drink.

“Hm,” Peggy hums, shuffling papers into her bag, “To whom he was not particularly faithful, as has been discussed.”

“Do you ever feel like…like everybody’s out there gettin’ married, havin’ kids, and you’re just in this office. Behind this badge.”

She purses her lips, squeezes her eyes shut, puts her fingers to the bridge of her nose, and braces herself.

“Something on your mind, agent?”

“Do you think that stuff ever happens for people like us?” He glances up at her, his brow furrowed.

“People like us?”

It strikes her suddenly – that Thompson might see them as something like equals, at least in their devotion to their work.

“You know,” he smirks, “The last to leave.”

He looks deeply melancholy; the sight is unfamiliar and awkward and Peggy longs for escape.

She lets herself go a little stiff. “Are you drunk?”

“I’ve been drinking. I’m not drunk,” he tells her, as if there were a tremendous distinction between the two. Peggy sighs and starts to button her coat.

“I’m sure you could get a date if you wanted one. You’re…” she wracks her brain for a compliment that she can stomach giving, “…young. And you certainly distinguished yourself in the war. Some women must like that sort of thing.”

Every angle of his body suddenly goes sharp. He straightens his back, squares his shoulders, his hands grip the wooden arms of his chair. He looks like she just poured ice water on him. “No—“ he starts and stops. He runs a hand across his face, and then looks up at her with his usual puckish smugness. But this time something about it feels false. For all her experience analyzing people and their motives, she’s never spent much time on Thompson. Suddenly he seems like a fascinating subject.

“What about you and me, Carter? Wouldn’t we make a swell team? I hear you got a thing for blonds, anyway.”

Suddenly he seems decidedly less fascinating.

“I’m sorry, were you particularly interested in seeing how hard I could hit you?”

“No, for chrissakes. I’m flirting with you,” he grins and stands, swinging his jacket around his shoulders. “Lighten up, Carter. Now let’s get outta here.”


	5. peggy/howard - "do you ever think we should just stop this?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _5\. Prompt: Peggy/Howard, “Do you ever think we should just stop this?”_

“Do you ever think we should just stop this?”

Peggy gives Howard a hard look in the dim light. What they do together has always benefited from an absolute minimum of conversation. Hepresses her against the wall of the alcove they’ve hidden themselves away in.London’s blackout darkness hides them further still.

“Constantly,” she gives a long-suffering sigh and he smiles, reaching up to wrap a strand of her hair around his finger. He can always tell when she’s bluffing. “Do you?”

“ _Never_.”

His voice is unexpectedly stern; his eyes glisten strangely in the gloomy light.

A sharp, strident air raid siren cuts through the night. It’s only a drill - the bombers have long since stopped crossing the channel - but across the adjacent street Peggy hears shouts and scuffling as pedestrians take cover. She still feels a shot of terror at the sound of the alarm; she remembers too well those terrible months that had turned her city into a smoldering ruin.

Howard surges forward, kissing her hard, and the chaos fades a little. Peggy’s hands clutch at his jacket, pulling him closer. Working with him is maddening – he is brilliant but intense, and too willing to push aside moral qualms to achieve an end. But this – these private moments outside of SSR headquarters – is worse. She wishes she didn’t know so well the heat of his mouth, the way their bodies fit together. Steve will return from France in three weeks, and she wishes that she could face him without having known the temptation of another man.

She pushes Howard away. “Lets—“ she starts, but doesn’t know if the sentence ends with a plea to stop or an invitation to her flat.

Howard must see some of her hesitation, because he grips her hand and squeezes.

“Come on,” he pulls her arm. She knows where he’ll take her; she knows what they’ll do. “Let’s get a drink in you.”


	6. peggy/steve - things you said with no space between us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _6\. Prompt: things you said with no space between us, Peggy x Steve_

He runs into her on a train outside occupied Paris. The look she gives him as he enters her compartment is filled with disgust, and it’s a long, low moment before he remembers the stolen uniform he’s wearing ( _black jacket, red armband_ ). But when her eyes reach his face, she lights up. She’s disguised too – in a simple dress with a bare face – just a plain, provincial girl on her way to the big city ( _her French is impeccable_ ).

They disembark at Gare du Nord, shuffling into a roiling sea of travellers who eye Steve with wary, Gallic disdain. Peggy only has an hour until her _rendezvous_ with the _maquisards_ , but she tilts her head at him in a way that gives him no choice but to follow her through the crowd and onto the dusky, lamp-lit street ( _he has never had a choice, with her_ ).

She pulls him into an empty alleyway, grabs the lapels of the damned ugly uniform and yanks his body against hers. She knocks the cap off his head and rakes her fingernails through his hair ( _and oh, how that turns his every nerve electric_ ). There isn’t time for anything more than a few hasty kisses, but that alone is enough to send Steve’s heart into palpitations. Peggy’s mouth is soft and hungry under his. She lets his hands roam across her waist and cup her backside.

She pulls away from him and smiles. He is hard, aching with lust and excitement, and she knows it. His stomach clenches. In a moment, she’ll be gone, and God only knows when they’ll see each other next. 

“Don’t worry, my darling,” she whispers, pressing a final kiss to the corner of his mouth, “We’ll meet again.”


	7. peggy/steve - cheese on toast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _7\. I roped myself into writing post-coital cheese-on-toast fic, and it was all roboticonography's fault._

_A British woman officer or non-commissioned officer can and often does give orders to a man private. The men obey smartly and know it is no shame. For British women have proven themselves in this war. ([A Short Guide to Great Britain](http://historicalagentcarter.tumblr.com/post/91852598883/this-fantastic-little-booklet-was-issued-to-us), p. 23) _

 

Waking up in Peggy’s bed is like nothing else, that’s for sure. Steve stretches out and finds himself alone on her narrow mattress, but doesn’t let it bother him. Light filters in through her curtains, filling the room with a pale, gauzy glow. He can hear noise in the next room – _the kitchen_ , he remembers vaguely from the previous night’s whirlwind, lust-fueled tour of her flat. He hears the quiet, comfortingly domestic sounds of cookware clinking, water running; a pan sizzles and the accompanying aroma wafts towards him.

Steve smiles and turns his face into his pillow. Peggy’s bed is dressed up in sweet-smelling cotton sheets, warmed by their bodies. He closes his eyes and lets everything be perfect for a long moment. 

 

_The British don’t know how to make a good cup of coffee. You don’t know how to make a good cup of tea. It’s an even swap. (A Short Guide to Great Britain, p. 17)_

 

Peggy enters carrying two plates on one arm and two mugs in her other hand. Her dressing gown dips dangerously low at the bust as she kneels on the mattress, offering Steve a glimpse of warm, soft skin. She clears her throat pointedly; Steve pulls his eyes up to her face, feeling his cheeks turn hot.

The plate she hands him holds a thick slice of golden brown bread topped by a bubbling mass of yellow cheese.

“It’s…” he starts, but stumbles to a stop. He remembers the little book they handed him before he shipped out to England. _Don’t criticize the food. Use common sense. It is always impolite to criticize your hosts._

“Not much, I know,” Peggy shrugs, offering him a cup of mud-brown sludge that smells vaguely like coffee. “I had a bit of mustard left, though. Quite the rarity now, as you can imagine.” 

Steve can tell she’s a little pleased with herself – and it’s almost unbearably charming.

He shoves aside his hesitation (he knows he’s had worse – he’s eaten Bucky’s cooking), lifts the bread and takes a bite. It’s hot and savory; the cheese melts on his tongue and the mustard nips the back of his throat. 

He looks up, across the bed, and notices Peggy looking at him expectantly. He smiles with his mouth full, and she grants him a satisfied little smirk. Steve’s heart glows. Even if it’s the only thing she knows how to make (he strongly suspects this might be the case), he’ll be happy to eat it for breakfast for the rest of his life.


	8. peggy/bucky - part 1 - bucky lives/steve falls AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _8\. This is for sevenfoxes, who asked for some slow burn Peggy/Bucky. So here's a little Steve-fell-from-the-train AU. If I even kind of had the time, this would totally be an epic, heartbreaking, novel-length,_ Agent Carter _, Steve-as-the-Winter-Soldier AU. However._

The last time she sees him, for a long while, at least, is in the blackened shell of a London pub. 

“It wasn’t your fault,” she tells him.

“What the hell do you know about it,” he spits back, and he’s right. Peggy can only imagine the horror on Steve’s face as he tumbled down into an Alpine ravine. James saw it himself.

She sits with him, watching him down half a bottle of bourbon, stone-faced and silent. It’s the closest to a wake Steve will have. When James starts to slump in his seat, Peggy helps him to his feet and walks him back to barracks.

She plans to leave him at the door, which is dark now due to the late hour, but he grabs her, takes her face in his hands and kisses her. Peggy feels the air sucked out of her lungs. Bucky smells like sweat and liquor. He keeps his lips tightly closed.

“Both got burned, didn’t we?” he says, low and gravelly, when he pulls away.

 _And that’s right, isn’t it?_ she thinks. Because without Steve, she feels empty, hollow, full of ashes. And no one will understand that as well as Bucky.

In a week, Sergeant Barnes is back in Europe. 

*

A long war stretches out between them. HYDRA bombs fall on New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, but the Americans hit back hard, with split atoms and endless waves of troops ready to die for their country. It’s almost 1950 when it’s finally, finally over.

Peggy sees James again: on V-Day in Trafalgar Square, looking dead-eyed and disoriented amongst a sea of revelers. She pushes her way through the crowd, keeping her eyes fixed on him lest he should be swallowed up in the throng and never seen again.

“James!” she nearly shouts when she’s caught up to him. Something sparks behind his eyes – a faint recognition. His face contorts into an unpleasant grimace, and it takes Peggy a quick moment to realize that he’s smiling.

They exchange a few pleasantries – _Fancy seeing you here. How are things. So you survived, and so did I._ They struggle to hear each other over the din of celebration; in the mob, strange bodies bump into theirs, pushing them closer together. Peggy sees that the left sleeve of his uniform is rolled and pinned near the shoulder. He angles his body so the stump isn’t too close to her.

“What will you do now?” she asks him. James turns a sickly shade of yellow-white, and for a moment Peggy thinks he might vomit or cry or crumble. She knows: he didn’t expect to live to see victory. Some days, neither did she.

She opens her mouth again to fill the silence between them with something that will make him forget she ever asked when the nearby _pop_ of a champagne cork makes James flinch and bring his hand reflexively up to cover his head. 

“Christ, I need a drink,” he mutters, and Peggy puts her hand on his arm and leads him away. 

They make it to an empty side street – too narrow for vehicles and, at least for the moment, abandoned by pedestrians – before James finally buckles, first hunching over with his hand on one thigh, then slowly, agonizingly, lowering himself to kneel on the unforgiving cobblestones.

Peggy watches the curve of his back rise and fall – too fast – as he tries to pull himself together. For a moment, she wonders how much she should acknowledge the breakdown; something terribly English in her tells her to straighten her back and wait it out in dignified, respectful silence, trusting that James will come back to himself in time. 

Instead she brings her hand to the back of his neck. His skin there is warm and clammy, and he shudders a little when she scores her fingernails along the short hair below the brim of his cap. Peggy tucks her other hand into her pocketbook, fishing out a red paper carton of Pall Malls. With one hand resolutely placed on James’ shoulder, she balances the pack against her hip, flicks open the lid with her thumbnail, and pulls out a slender cigarette.

“The SSR is sending me to New York,” she tells him.

He grunts. “Bully for you.” She can’t see his face, but she can hear the hoarse pain in his voice.

She sets a cigarette between her lips and tucks the carton away again. Her lighter is retrieved and the pad of her thumb scrapes against the flint wheel.

She thinks of Steve, of how he loved this man crumpled on the ground before her. The thought pulls at her heart and gut.

“You ought to come, too.”

He shakes his head and runs his hand across his face, his fingers pinching at the bridge of his nose. 

“I got nothin’ in New York.”

Peggy breathes deep, letting the smoke seep into her lungs, letting her shoulders loosen a little. She passes the cigarette to James, who takes it between trembling fingers. 

“You could make something there,” she says quietly. “Get a place to hang your hat. Honest work. A friend to share a cigarette with.”

He looks up at her, and even though his eyes are red-veined and his cheeks are drawn, he has something like a wry smile on his face.

“Come on, soldier.” Peggy gives him her most dazzling smile; the look she would have given Steve if he had been here to see this victory with them. She claps her hand against his shoulder. “On your feet.”


	9. peggy/bucky - part 2 - bucky lives/steve falls AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a request for a little more of the Peggy/Bucky 'verse from the previous chapter, showing his integration into the SSR or a glimpse into his general recovery alongside Peggy. So, here it is.
> 
> [Trigger warning for a derogatory term for people with disabilities]

It takes Bucky a full week to antagonize half of the SSR’s New York staff. With Chief Dooley, he is cool and surly. He rebuffs Agent Sousa’s offer of after-hours drinks. “The war made us cripples, but that don’t mean we’re gonna be pals,” he says gruffly, ignoring Sousa’s wounded expression. Peggy watches as he and Agent Thompson do an odd dance around each other; Bucky rolls his eyes and grimaces at Thompson’s displays of pomposity, but more than once she sees them slip each other an aluminum flask at hours far too early for alcohol. He simply ignores the other agents, who swarm around him eager to catch a glimpse of the marksman who’d crossed Europe with Captain America.

Most days, though, he doesn’t bother showing up, preferring the dark and quiet of his East Village apartment (in the end, it had been too painful to return to Brooklyn). On one of her afternoon lunch runs, Peggy picks his lock and finds him there, sprawled on his sofa with his eyes closed. His hair’s grown a little shaggy; the cut of his cheekbones and his jawline are marred by a smattering of facial hair. 

Peggy tucks the bit of wire that she’d shoved through his lock into her coat pocket. She clicks her tongue.

“I see you aren’t worried about the intruder in your home.” 

He smiles, cracking open one eye to see her. 

“Aw, I knew it was you, Carter. You've got a soft step.” He sits up, swinging his feet over the edge of the couch. 

She crosses her arms across her chest. “Not planning on making an appearance today?”

Bucky looks up at her, and she’s satisfied that he at least has the decency to look a little guilty. “Maybe tomorrow.”

Peggy lets loose a long-suffering sigh – a little exaggerated for effect – and joins him on the sofa. Her hip presses against his; their elbows touch. He has his curtains drawn, blocking out the bright day, and Peggy studies him in the gloom. His eyes are weary, his hand trembles a little, he smells like whiskey and sweat.

“I have to say, Sergeant, I’d been led to believe you were rather a different sort of man than this.”

“Yeah. Guess so. Folks used to like me. I used to be—” 

Bucky stops, scoffs and rubs his hand across his face.

Peggy thinks perhaps she ought to feel a little sorry for him, this man who has reinvented himself as someone wholly unlikeable. But the war tore up her world, too – killed the people she loved, burned the city she called home, turned her life upside-down – and she has little patience for this kind of malingering.

“I’ll expect you first thing, then,” she tells him, keeping her tone crisp. “I’ll tell Dooley to have an assignment ready.”

He looks over at her with red-rimmed eyes, then reaches over to grab her palm in his. Before she can instinctively flinch away, Bucky pulls the back of her hand to his mouth, leaving behind a long, silent kiss that makes Peggy’s chest clench. He gives her fingers a squeeze before he lets go.

“See you in the morning, Peg.”


	10. peggy/angie - "where do the noses go?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _10\. Prompted by Merideath: Peggy/Angie- "know how to kiss, or I would kiss you. Where do the noses go? (Laugh) Always I wonder, where the noses would go?" (Bergman in For Whom the Bell Tolls)_

“I don’t know how to kiss,” Angie leans over the arm of the theater chair that separates them and whispers into Peggy’s ear, her words matching perfectly with Ingrid Bergman’s on the screen before them, “or I would kiss you. Where do the noses go?”

Peggy can’t help rolling her eyes a little. Despite her ambivalence towards motion pictures, Angie’s managed to drag her to a cinema in Brooklyn that plays years-old films to nearly-empty theaters for a discounted price. They’ve tucked themselves into the back row, propping their feet on the empty seats in front of them.

“What a lot of rot,” Peggy mutters, valiantly pretending that Hemingway’s war-torn lovers don’t chip away at the thick armor surrounding her heart. She gestures towards Gary Cooper. “He’s far too old for her. It’s ridiculous.”

“It’s _romantic_ , English,” Angie whispers back, knocking her elbow against Peggy’s. 

Peggy looks over at her. In the flickering light, she’s beautiful; the sight of her makes Peggy’s head feel light. 

“As though anyone could believe you wouldn’t know how to kiss.” Peggy feels herself go soft, feels the _pull_ that draws them together. “There’s not an actor in the world who could convince me of that.”

Angie smiles, bright and brilliant, and reaches for her. “Yeah,” she whispers against Peggy’s mouth, “I know where the noses go.”


	11. peggy/bucky - bucky's the candidate for the serum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _11\. Prompted by sevensneakyfoxes: Peggy/Bucky. AU. Bucky's the candidate for the serum._

“Are you nervous?” 

As the Manhattan skyline comes into view, Peggy sizes up the man sitting next to her in the cramped back seat. Barnes’ left knee bounces restlessly. His right hand is curled into a fist; he rubs the pad of his thumb against the curve of his forefinger as though he were holding a phantom string of rosary beads.

“Nah,” he bluffs, shaking his head sharply. He’s silent for a long moment, then shrugs. “Don’t like doctors so much, is all. Needles, machines. That kind of thing.”

He looks over at her, and Peggy looks back, curious. Barnes excelled at basic training. He won Erskine’s favor through his selflessness, heart, and force of will, and, of the soldiers in her care, Peggy had also seen something refreshingly uncommon in him. Now that he’s been _chosen_ , though, he glows a little brighter. For better or worse, Peggy has always been pulled towards men who have risen above the crowd. 

“I got a pal, he’s always sick. Goes in an’ out of the hospital,” he gestures vaguely, “He don’t mind it so much, that kind of thing. Not me, though. Not me.”

“I shouldn’t be worried, if I were you,” Peggy glances out the window, unable to hold his glance through the lie, “You’re in very capable hands.”

In four years of war, she has offered so many words of comfort to doomed soldiers. She wonders, sometimes, if they remember her in their last moments. She wonders if, when they’re pierced by bullets or torn up by shrapnel, they curse the false hope she gave them.

The car rumbles over the Brooklyn Bridge, and Barnes sighs and falls back into his seat a little.

“Let me buy you a drink when it’s all over, then.”

She looks back at him sharply, disappointed at this turn into all-too-familiar territory.

He smiles. “If you say I’m gonna get through it, then let me have somethin’ to look forward to.”

Peggy feels a tremor of anxiety run through her. She wonders if saying _yes_ will make her feel more or less guilty if he dies in Erskine and Stark’s contraption.

“All right.”

Barnes’ grin widens. He holds a hand out to her; against her better judgment, Peggy takes it and he gives it a firm shake. His palm is warm and dry against hers.

The car pulls to a stop in front of the storefront that hides the SSR’s Brooklyn laboratory. Barnes pulls his gaze away from her and gives the building a long look. His body goes eerily still.

“Chin up, Sergeant,” Peggy tries to inject a little enthusiasm into her words, but her voice is too quiet to be convincing. He looks back at her, and the look on his face – tense and fearful, and trying so desperately to hide it – is horribly, horribly familiar. “Don't forget, you owe me a drink.”


	12. peggy/gabe - in los angeles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _12\. Prompt: Peggy and Gabe Jones run into each other in LA._

Somehow, they find each other on the sun-soaked streets of Los Angeles. It’s the kind of meeting that is at once deeply awkward and strangely comforting. Peggy is pleased to see that Private Jones – but she’s to call him _Gabe_ now – has done well for himself: left the army behind and taken up a gig as a trumpeter in a jazz club on Central Avenue.

After her day is done, she finds him there, surrounded by his fellow musicians, and fairly glowing under hot stage lights. Sitting at a table on her own, Peggy swallows two gin-and-tonics and burns through three cigarettes. The music lights her up, fills her with a restless energy. Gabe joins her at the end of the set; he’s breathless, with beads of sweat along his brow. He is (has always been) terribly handsome, Peggy thinks, watching him sip at a glass of whiskey.

Her body is still tense and humming when Gabe leads her out of the club, but she feels herself calm a little when she lifts herself up on her toes and press her mouth to his. Gabe, for his part, loops his arm around her waist, and Peggy’s done for.

She knows she ought to be embarrassed at how quickly, and with how little reluctance, she leads him to her hotel room and into her bed. But, though she is surrounded by men who served, there are so few who can understand what her war was really like. Touching Gabe, letting him hold her and make love to her, makes her feel understood in a way that she hasn’t in ages.

In the morning, she wakes to find him seated at the edge of her bed, with his trousers on and his elbows on his knees. The curve of his back is dark and smooth; she nearly reaches out to touch him, but he turns his face to her before she can. His expression is solemn and mournful. Peggy clenches her fists. 

“I oughta go,” he says quietly.

She leans up onto her elbows, pulling the bedsheets up “I won’t see you again.”

He purses his lips. “I try to forget the war. What I saw, what I did,” he takes a deep breath, “Feels like…like he’s watching me.”

Peggy feels her heart drop to her stomach. There’s a flutter of anger and grief that starts in her chest and pulses through her whole body, making her hands tremble and her eyes sting.

“Seems like all the men in my life look at me, and just see him.”

He tries to smile, “That can’t always be a bad thing.”

Gabe reaches behind him and rests his palm on her calf. His hand is warm, even through layers of blankets.

Peggy clears her throat, and tries to smile back.


	13. peggy/howard - in paris

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _13\. Prompt: Peggy and Howard are spending a lot of time together during the creation of SHIELD. They get to know each other pretty well and fall in love with one another, but Howard falls first and hard._
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _This one has a little graphic that goes with it[here](http://hardboiledmeggs.tumblr.com/post/125764073992/peggy-x-howard-prompt-i-call-them-poward-btw)._

Peggy quickly realizes that Howard is the kind of person for whom Paris can still be seen as a capitol of romance. In the three months they spend there establishing SHIELD’s European headquarters, he pulls her through every crowded café, nightclub, and dance hall in the city, sure that he can use the city as a conduit through which to woo her into his bed. But Peggy doesn’t tell him that she’s seen the city before; she remembers what it looked like when swastikas lined the Champs Elysées, what it sounded like to hear jackboots on every street, what it felt like to hear that another agent in [F Section](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOE_F_Section_networks) had been caught and shot. The city holds no feelings of romance for her.

But Howard remains undeterred by her melancholy. The past is past, he tells her, enthusiastically pointing out the gay Parisians who have returned to their wine-women-and-song. He’s made his feelings towards her clear enough, though Peggy has done her best to ignore him. Her heart still feels blackened by grief, and she is still too unsure that she has any love left to give.

On a warm afternoon, he leads her down to the quai along the Seine. They walk quietly together, passing groups of bohemian young people with guitars and sketchpads and half-empty wine bottles. The vibrant tableaux they present make Peggy feel withered and ancient.

“I get it, Peg,” Howard says to her at last, when they’ve gotten away from the crowd. She arches an eyebrow skeptically. “Being back in Europe reminds you of the war. But it’s over now. Not everybody got to go home, but we did. We do.”

“Depends on your definition of the word.” Peggy clamps her mouth shut. She’s tipped her hand too far, let too much of her soft heart show. But Howard blinks, furrows his brow and casts his gaze across the river to his right. Peggy thinks she can see a swelling of emotion behind the tremble of his clenched jaw. He understands. 

“The future’s gonna be grand,” he says quietly, turning back to face her, “If you want to see it, you’ve got to keep both eyes facing forward.”

Peggy sighs. She thinks of what they’re building – this vast international agency with the noble goal of pursuing and enforcing peace and safety. It’s the legacy of everything Steve stood for; it’s worth the pain.

“I really hate it when you’re right.”

Howard smiles and hooks his arm around her shoulders, “Lucky for you, it doesn’t happen that often.”

His body is warm, pressed up against hers. Next to them, the waters of the Seine start to reflect the late evening sky; little yellow and pink swells lap against the riverbank. 

Peggy smiles when he squeezes her closer, and when he brushes his lips across her temple, she lets herself like it.


	14. peggy/steve - the blow job

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ridiculous blow-job fic was written in response to [this challenge](http://roboticonography.tumblr.com/post/127798032942/attention-everyone) issued by roboticonography.

In the empty, forgotten corners of the SSR’s headquarters, buried deep under London’s busy streets, Peggy kisses Steve soft and slow. Heat and hunger burn low in his gut, but he lets her set the pace, lets her work him over with her lips and tongue and roving hands until he’s hard and trembling. He’s sure she knows more about how these things ought to go, and he’s happy to let her take the lead. But when her fingers pull at the button at the front of his slacks, when her hands tug his shirttails out of the way, when she drops to her knees, his first impulse is to stop her. 

He knows that he knows nothing, but he also knows what men say about girls – _women_ – who do this. His big hands cover hers and she looks up at him sharply. Peggy’s eyes search his face, and she seems to see it: the _what-abouts_ and _if-thens_ that hang on the tip of his tongue.

She smiles at him sympathetically. Her crimson lipstick is gone; both of their mouths are smeared pink.

“Just let yourself go,” she whispers, and then pulls away the fabric of his trousers and shorts and sucks the head of his prick into her mouth. Steve’s head tilts back until it knocks against the wall behind him. He balls his hands into fists to stop himself from grabbing her too roughly. His stomach tightens, his legs tense, his eyes squeeze shut under the pressure of his own pleasure. Peggy’s mouth is hot and slick; her movements are sure and unapologetic. Silently, he wishes that he could live forever in this exact moment, but as soon as the thought is fully crystallized in his mind, it’s over. He comes quickly, with a violent, unexpected force. 

When he steadies himself enough to look at her again, Peggy’s back on her feet, tucking him back into his pants and pulling a handkerchief and a tube of lipstick out of her pocket. Steve feels sure he ought to return the favor, but he’s too thunderstruck, stupid and speechless. Peggy smirks at him – at his rumpled clothes and flushed face – and reaches up to brush her hand across his cheek. 

“Back to work, Captain,” she tells him as she puts herself back together. Before she leaves him there, Peggy gives him a full, stunning smile that makes Steve feel certain that she must have gotten some satisfaction out of taking him to pieces in the middle of the day, just minutes before his next briefing. 

 

*

It happens that a week later Peggy overhears Dugan and Jones making a few good-natured jibes at Steve’s expense, with his _inexperience_ a particular target of innuendo and teasing. Steve doesn’t mind it so much - he’s not such a hard-nosed commanding officer that he can’t let himself take a little ribbing now and again, but when Peggy catches up with him later, in the labyrinthine headquarters’ hallways, her face is stern and disapproving.

“Why do you let them say those things?” she asks. “It isn’t as though you’re a blushing virgin.”

As if on cue, Steve feels his face grow hot. “ _Well_ ,” he starts weakly, “I’m not – I mean – Aren’t I? Sort of?”

The look she gives him could peel paint. “What on earth do you think that was the other day?”

“Bucky says—“ Steve falters, then tries to steel himself, “If the girl couldn’t get knock— _pregnant_ – from it, then it don’t – _doesn’t_ – count.”

“What a load of—“ Peggy huffs. “I assure you that it _does_ , Steve,” her voice drops to an exasperated whisper, “It’s called oral sex; _sex_ is its last name.”

Steve knits his brow, arranges his face into a pensive expression and rocks back on his heels. “So the next time the fellas give me hell about it, I suppose I’ll just tell them that according to Agent Peggy Carter–“

Peggy gives him a fierce swat on the arm. “I’ll thank you to leave me out of it.” She scans the hall to make sure none of the passing agents and officers are too close to them. 

“But perhaps it would be easier to settle the debate once and for all,” she murmurs, heat rising to her cheeks, “When do you have time?”

“ _Now_ ,” Steve hears himself gasp.

“Ten minutes. You know where.” When she looks up at him, her expression is intense in a way that makes Steve’s heart beat a little faster. “Don’t you dare be late.”


	15. peggy & the winter soldier - no prompt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to katertots for looking this one over. She's the best.
> 
> This was meant to be a tumblr prompt response, but it got quickly out of hand, and totally didn't fill the prompt. So.

**NEW YORK CITY**  
**1951**

Peggy doesn’t know why she lets herself be led up the elegant staircase of the Savoy-Plaza Hotel, from the relative safety and security of the lower level’s well-lit lounge into the darkened recesses of a beautifully-appointed suite. 

Or at least that’s what she tells herself. Later, she realizes that she knows exactly why she followed the operative code-named Winter Soldier into a room he claimed was his own (a subsequent examination of the hotel’s records reveals that the room had been reserved by a mid-level United Nations aide, the remains of whom were discovered on the banks of the Hudson one week later). Peggy puts herself in this situation – barely armed, dressed only in slinky undercover eveningwear, and at a million disadvantages – because _she knows him_. 

If the Soldier knows that he wears Bucky Barnes’ face, he doesn’t reveal it. Through cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, they each play at being what they _aren’t_ – a pair of civilians innocently meeting in a hotel bar. They _are_ , perhaps, the world’s foremost espionage agents, and a tense electricity buzzes between them. The Soldier, perhaps, believes that he has the notorious Agent Carter in his grasp; Peggy, swiftly repressing her initial shock, has one of the Soviet Union’s greatest secrets in her clutches. As she does on any mission, she steels herself, imagining that her real heart is cold and impenetrable. And yet, a handful of mutinous thoughts fight for her attention: _This_ , this, _is Bucky Barnes; this is the man Steve rescued and fought beside and loved; he may kill you before he lets you save him_. 

And so, she lets him lead her upstairs. To all the world, she supposes, they look like a pair of lovers, simply on a journey to their latest tryst. A part of her is sure that she is walking to her death. The pistol strapped to her thigh chafes as she climbs the stairs; her fingers itch to hold it. Her instinct for self-preservation has always been strong.

Behind closed doors, he pushes her against the wall and Peggy lets him take the upper hand, for now. His left hand, preternaturally strong and covered in a leather glove, grips her arm tightly. Peggy thinks back to her pre-mission briefing, to the SHIELD intelligence that revealed the Soldier’s metal arm. _Bucky Barnes_ ’ metal arm. The same intelligence also revealed ghastly tales of Soviet brainwashing and so-called reeducation. She can only wonder at the horrors to which Barnes has been subjected.

He leans his face close to hers. For a strange moment, she thinks he might kiss her. She thinks of all the men she has kissed and killed.

“I know who you are,” he purrs, self-satisfied. His breath is hot against her cheek.

“And I,” she whispers, fixing her eyes on his, “know who _you_ are.” He is unfazed; her answer was expected. She plays her final card. “I know your _name_.”

The Soldier falters and drops character. He blinks, his brow furrows, his jaw hangs open for a moment before clamping shut. She’s hit a nerve already.

Peggy feels her blood go hot. “It’s—“ she starts.

“Shut up,” he hisses, “What makes you think you know anything?”

Peggy tilts her head back against the wall behind her. She sets her jaw. “I knew you.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did.”

“There was nothing to know.”

“There was. You were a man. You still are.”

His grip tightens. “No. I’m an agent. Like you. A tool. An asset.”

She shakes her head. “Who told you that?”

Barnes expression goes wide open. It’s a reveal Peggy’s familiar with – the moment when even the most hardened agent feels a dagger slip between his ribs. He lets her go and turns his back, afraid of what else she might see on his face. 

For a long moment, she watches his shoulders heave in the dimly lit room. She stands tall, moving away from the wall. When she speaks again, her voice is quiet, but strong.

“ _Sergeant Barnes_.”

He reels on her; Peggy has a half-second to react, lifting her right arm to block a blow from the viciously heavy metal arm. The pain hits her instantly – brutal and shocking. With her free hand, she moves fast, reaching for the stiletto hidden in her gown’s bodice and thrusting it to the hilt into his flesh-and-blood shoulder. Barnes winces, but doesn’t cry out. In the next moment, his other fist hits the side of her face – skin against skin. The room spins, her legs buckle, her eyes close, and she hits the floor.

 

\--

 

When Peggy wakes, the room is full of SHIELD agents. Howard’s face looms over hers. He’s dressed in a tuxedo – white tie. She wonders what gala he left when he got the call that she’d been taken down. Her right arm is tightly bandaged, strapped to a splint. The palm of her left hand is covered in dried, brown blood. 

Not giving a damn about the crowded room (as usual), Howard runs his hands across her hair and shoulders and murmurs her name. It’s terribly unprofessional, but Howard’s soft touch feels good after the hard knock she’d received earlier, and she can’t bring herself to push him away.

“What the hell did you do, Peg?” he asks. His eyes are large and worried.

She scans the room. The other agents are carefully ignoring them, processing the scene with fingerprint powder and magnifying glasses. Even so, she keeps her voice down.

“The Soldier is Sergeant Barnes.”

Howard shakes his head. “Not possible.”

Peggy shrugs a shoulder. “But it is,” she says simply. She has seen enough of the impossible – they both have – to know that even this isn’t outside the realm of imagination.

“He died.”

“He didn’t.”

Howard pauses, looking away from her for a moment. Peggy supposes that, without seeing Barnes’ face in front of him, it will be a difficult truth to swallow. But Howard has always believed her when it counts.

“He’s dangerous.”

“Steve went to the ends of the earth to save him, once. Back then, we helped him.”

Howard looks back at her, his expression is sharp and stern. “We can’t chase after him this time.” She hears what he doesn’t say: _he could have killed you; it’s a miracle he didn’t_.

Peggy nods. “He’ll come to us. I’m sure of it.”

Howard reaches to take her hand. His fingers are warm around hers. 

The Winter Soldier _will_ find them. Peggy feels it in her bones. She hopes that she’ll be ready for him.


	16. peggy/howard - no prompt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This little ficlet takes place during the early second season of Agent Carter, when Howard and Peggy are co-habitating.

“Another?” Peggy asks, her voice raising slightly, “You had _four_ with dinner.”

Howard shoots her a fierce glare over the top of his freshly poured glass of brandy. His eyes have gone bleary and dark and his cheeks are flushed. He’s well on his way to being completely soused, and Peggy knows it.

She shrugs off his harsh look, giving him her most school marm-ish frown, “I just think it’s a bit much, is all.”

Howard meanders over to where she sits, perched on a brocade-covered chair in the ostentatious parlor of his Beverly Hills estate. His hip clips the edge of a table; his feet fumble over the carpet. Peggy feels her dismay grow; if she had known that coming to Los Angeles would have meant seeing him like this, she would never have come.

Howard’s ambling progress across the room is halted by Jarvis, who appears through the room’s main entrance.

“Anything before I retire, sir?” he asks, his Received Pronunciation sounding as natural as Peggy’s is affected.

“I think coffee is in order,” Peggy answers, her back straightening.

He leaves with a knowing nod, the door closing quietly behind him.

Howard, for his part, presses on, shuffling forward, drink in hand, kneeling on the carpet before her. He crumples a bit, resting his head in her lap. 

“Honestly, Howard,” she sighs, unsure of what to do with her hands.

He sits back on his ankles and looks up at her. “How’d I ever let you go?”

“You never had me.”

“That’s what I mean,” he sighs, “It’s a goddamn shame.” 

For all the times she’s seen him shamelessly flirt with countless women, Peggy suddenly finds herself completely ill equipped to manage being on the receiving end of his attentions. She feels her face grow hot and clenches her jaw, willing away her own embarrassment. 

“Kiss me, Peg,” he says, looking up at her plaintively.

She ought to rebuff him quickly, cuff him on the shoulder or the jaw to show him that’s she’s not just another simpering starlet. Instead, she thinks of her father, shuffling home after having had a beer too many in a feeble attempt to forget the pain and gore of the trenches. The look in Howard’s eyes – sad, lonely, boozy and lost – is deeply familiar.

She places her hands on his ears, tilts his head forward and kisses the top of his head. His hair is soft against her face and smells of chlorine.

When she looks down at him again, his face is a mask of affront.

“Not there.”

She raises an eyebrow.

Howard points to the center of his forehead. “Here.”

In for a penny, in for a pound. She leans forward and presses her lips to his skin, leaving behind a smear of lipstick.

“And here.” He points to his temple and she grants another swift peck.

He points to his cheek, and Peggy hesitates a moment before indulging him. The scent of his aftershave is faded but crisp; he radiates warmth. Howard leans slightly, just barely turning his face towards hers. She feels his fingers touch her ankle gently, cautiously. Peggy lingers a moment, and time slows. 

“Is this how you seduce all those girls?”

Howard has the decency to look hurt, and Peggy feels a pinch of regret at the pain in his eyes.

“No,” he breathes, “Not hardly. Peg—“ He purses his lips and blinks, swaying a little on his knees. What he says next comes out in a whisper so faint, even though they’re only inches away, Peggy nearly doesn’t hear it.

“ _We lost him_.”

It’s a punch to the gut. Peggy hears herself gasp, feels the room spin when a moment before it had been so still.

It’s then that Jarvis re-enters, carrying a tray with two cups of steaming, black coffee. Peggy shudders to think what they must look like – Howard on his knees, Peggy leaning over him, her lipstick dotting his face. 

Howard springs to his feet, steadying himself with a heavy hand on Peggy’s shoulder, then crosses the room to clap Jarvis on the back. “Don’t get the wrong idea, pal,” he slurs before pushing past him and disappearing.

Alone, Peggy stands, smooths her skirt and squares her shoulders, bracing herself against a wave of uncomfortable silence. In an instant, she decides to be unashamed; Howard has trusted and believed in her, and shared experiences with her that no other could hope to understand as well.

“No need to explain, Miss Carter.” Jarvis tells her, giving her a sympathetic glance. 

“No, I suppose not.” Her tone is curt and final. “Goodnight, Mr. Jarvis.”


	17. peggy/bucky - part 3 - bucky lives/steve falls AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peggy and Sousa return from Los Angeles and find Bucky at the SSR headquarters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the third, and possibly not last part of the Peggy/Bucky AU that's been happening in this collection of ficlets. The first and second parts are in chapters 8 and 9. This one takes place after season 2 of Agent Carter so some spoilers are contained within.
> 
> This could be interpreted as a continuation of the original prompt for slow burn Peggy/Bucky, but I also have a prompt in my tumblr inbox for Peggy and Bucky-related pornography, so this might/will obviously end up there, too.

After they disembark at LaGuardia, Peggy and Daniel make their way to the SSR headquarters in Manhattan. It’s Peggy’s suggestion – even though it’s nearly midnight and they’re bone-tired from the flight and the past few weeks in Los Angeles, even though they’d spent the whole flight with their hands clasped together, stealing an occasional kiss, the idea of being truly alone with him makes something anxious rise up in her chest. So she stalls, insisting that they drop off their files and reports before they decide what to do next.

She wishes it surprised her to find James there. As they walk in, Daniel still has her hand in his, but she whips it back to her side as soon as she catches sight of Barnes. He has his feet propped up on his desk, leaning back on his chair in the empty, dimly-lit office.

“Peggy?” he calls out, kicking his feet to the floor, rising up and crossing the office in a heartbeat. 

He clasps him to her tightly with his only arm. Peggy makes up for the difference, wrapping her arms around his neck and trying to make it look as friendly as possible, for Daniel's sake. She can feel him looking at her over James’ shoulder, and she presses her lips into a tight, expressionless line.

“You gotta tell me when you get back,” James murmurs nonsensically against her shoulder, “You gotta—I was waiting, I thought—“

While she was in California, they had talked together on the phone a handful of times. Peggy didn’t tell him about Jason and the dark matter, or about Dottie, and she definitely didn’t tell him about the rebar that pierced her gut. She knows how he would have worried. She knows that she’s all he has, now. 

He leans away, looking her over, seeing how she is. “Come on,” he says, “It’s not that late. Let’s get a drink. You can tell me all about California. I thought you'd have a tan.”

Peggy smiles at him, but her heart sinks. She can smell the whiskey on his breath.

“How about a cup of coffee,” she offers, and the corner of his mouth gives a disappointed quirk, “I know a place you’ll like.”

Daniel clears his throat quietly and James turns, looking at him with surprise and irritation, as though he’s only just now noticed his presence in the room. Peggy feels a pang of uncertainty; she knows how the evening was supposed to end – she and Daniel would have shared a cab, he might have followed her up to her apartment, and they would likely have made love, putting some kind of covenant on whatever relationship they were building towards. But now she’s standing next to James, and if she’s all he has, then it’s the same for her, too.

“Excuse me, Chief Sousa,” she slips Daniel an apologetic look. She knows James will see it, but she also knows that Daniel won’t notice what James notices. “Sergeant Barnes – _Agent_ Barnes and have something to discuss.”

She stumbles over her words intentionally. If she’s picked up a little of Steve’s reflected glow, James is bathed in it. His exploits during the war are the stuff of legend. Daniel _is_ different from the other men in the office, but he isn’t immune to the effect of that kind of celebrity.

“Yeah,” Daniel smiles magnanimously through his dismay, ignoring the chilly looks James is sending his way. “Of course. I’ll see you in the morning.”

*

They slide into a booth at the L&L. James looks low and sullen, slumped in his seat with his hand shoved into his jacket pocket.

“You and Sousa?” he asks skeptically, “Did all that LA sun go to your head?”

Peggy straightens her back defensively. With another man, she would play prim, pretending not to even understand the accusation, but she knows that James would cotton on to her too quickly.

“And why not? He’s kind and stable and handsome and…and his heart’s in the right place.” It’s a sorry list. Peggy juts her chin out, determined.

James sneers and pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, grabbing one between his teeth. “Faint praise,” he tells her as she leans over the table with a light. 

Peggy leans back in her seat and huffs. 

“Am I never supposed to love anyone again?”

For a moment, he looks shocked, horrified by even the vaguest reference to the man they had both loved.

“No,” he insists in a rush, “I mean, you should. I just thought—“ 

He stops short, but she hears what he doesn’t say. _I just thought it would be me._

He looks up, looks away, looks down, fidgets in his seat, fumbles with his cigarette, coughs on the smoke. Peggy watches with astonishment; she’s never seen him slip up so spectacularly. And then, of course, she realizes that his visible panic is because of her, because of what he felt (feels) for her, and the thought of that makes something warm and light spread through her chest.

“I know what I’m like,” he says quietly, staring at the table between them, “I know I’m a mess. But I can—I _want_ to be better.” He looks up at her, forcing himself to be straightforward. “For you. I want to be better for you. And for Steve. And because it’s the right thing.”

The diner around them swirls with late-night activity – the loud voices of careless young people, waitresses barking orders to the kitchen, a crooning voice coming from a jukebox. But it all falls away. The only things Peggy can hear are James’ voice and the soft sound of rain starting to fall on the street outside – the two most natural things in her world at that moment. 

“It’s raining,” she says, and James swivels his head to look.

“Guess so.”

She takes a final sip of her coffee, leans across the table, plucks the cigarette out of James’ fingers and stamps it out on the table’s ashtray. He turns back to look at her just as she covers his hand with hers.

“Take me home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Submit Peggy-related prompts on [tumblr](http://hardboiledmeggs.tumblr.com/ask)!


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